In my desperate, often fumbling quest to recreate a few memorable mouthgasms during my brief trip to the Windy City, I ran into this video on Youtube where Bridget Lancaster from America's Test Kitchen describes her technique for making a "flaky" crust, noting how they developed it after some failed experiments with variations of biscuit dough, and it being too crumbly. I was wondering what you guys thought about the viability of something like this, particularly their use of butter.

In my desperate, often fumbling quest to recreate a few memorable mouthgasms during my brief trip to the Windy City, I ran into this video on Youtube where Bridget Lancaster from America's Test Kitchen describes her technique for making a "flaky" crust, noting how they developed it after some failed experiments with variations of biscuit dough, and it being too crumbly. I was wondering what you guys thought about the viability of something like this, particularly their use of butter.

From 5:35-9:00

I love America's Test Kitchen, but they have deep dish ALL WRONG. We've covered this in other threads, but I'll just say that they go to way too much trouble to try to make a dough that is actually a much more simple process.

I love America's Test Kitchen, but they have deep dish ALL WRONG. We've covered this in other threads, but I'll just say that they go to way too much trouble to try to make a dough that is actually a much more simple process.

You guys ostensibly have much more experience than I do in this department, so I'll defer to you on this, but would you have any links to how to do what it is they're trying to do here?

Also, try to look past my glaring noobiness here, but have you tried folding dough, or adding butter to dough? Is this a patently bad idea for some reason? If you or someone else could explain this to me like I was a 10-year-old that would be great. 8. Like you would to an 8-year-old. 5, but that's it. No less than 5.

The Corn meal needs to be removed of course and butter added after flour is hydrated, but other than that its decent. I think hydration is in the 60's and butter 10% or around there? Laminating with more butter would provide nice flavor and texture for sure.

In my desperate, often fumbling quest to recreate a few memorable mouthgasms during my brief trip to the Windy City, I ran into this video on Youtube where Bridget Lancaster from America's Test Kitchen describes her technique for making a "flaky" crust, noting how they developed it after some failed experiments with variations of biscuit dough, and it being too crumbly. I was wondering what you guys thought about the viability of something like this, particularly their use of butter.

You guys ostensibly have much more experience than I do in this department, so I'll defer to you on this, but would you have any links to how to do what it is they're trying to do here?

Also, try to look past my glaring noobiness here, but have you tried folding dough, or adding butter to dough? Is this a patently bad idea for some reason? If you or someone else could explain this to me like I was a 10-year-old that would be great. 8. Like you would to an 8-year-old. 5, but that's it. No less than 5.

The issue with their lamination technique is it isn't authentic. Chicago just does not put butter in between their layers like that. I've personally tried the recipe and while it's ok it's not as good as the real thing. Now if you are trying to make a pizza puff or turnover than that puff pastry recipe is for you.

Are there some issues you are having with deep dish doughs you have attempted? Too bready, not flaky?

What is your jumping off point, UrbanNoir75? If you haven't made one of the tried-and-true recipes here yet, maybe that's where you can start and deviate from there to get to the exact thing you want. Otherwise, you could fall into the analysis paralysis trap. Or maybe you have made one already, and there was something about it you didn't like.

Thanks for this. Just getting me up to speed, is "lamination" the technique used in the video?

SFNoir,

I have found that different people use different terms to describe the effect used in the video. Some might use the term lamination, others might use the expression multi-layered. Several years ago, I made a deep-dish dough that had several skins placed one on top of the other, with dabs of butter between the layers, and then rolled out that assembly to form what I called a lamination even though it was not done using the fold method as shown in the video or described in the two articles I referenced. I described my multi-layer technique at Reply 22 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=1585.msg14755#msg14755 .

The term "flaky" can also mean different things to different people. Most seem to think of flakiness in the sense that a pie crust is flaky or a biscuit is flaky. That might mean using cold butter or margarine added to the dough to achieve the flakiness. To others, the term flaky might connote the effect of superimposing or folding layers onto themselves to create a lamination. There might be a fat of some sort between the layers but it might be just flour to separate the layers. I was watching a Malnati's video earlier today at